Popular Conceptions of the Meaning of Democracy: Democratic Understanding in Unlikely Places

 
Levels of Awareness 
Are ordinary citizens capable of defining democracy in their own words? Prior surveys discussed 
above suggest that the public’s ability to define democracy varies considerably across countries 
and different timeperiods. In the Russian and Ukraine surveys, for example, three-quarters of 
their mass samples gave at least one answer to the open-ended question, confirming the salience 
of democracy (Miller, Hesli, and Reisinger 1997: 166). In other post-communist countries, those 
who gave a definition of democracy varied from a low of 66 percent in Romania to a high of 87 
percent in Czechoslovakia (Simon 1998). According to the two panel surveys conducted in 
Hungary during the 1989-1993 period, the percentage of citizens who offered a definition of 
democracy increased by 12 percentage points over a four-year period (Simon 1998: 105).

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The Afrobarometer found greater variation than observed in Central and Eastern Europe. 
Those who are able to give a meaning for democracy range from a low of 58 percent in Lesotho 
to a high of 98 percent in Nigeria (Bratton, Mattes, and Gyimah-Boadi 2005: 66). The 1998 
Hewlett study found that nearly nine-tenths of the publics in Chile, Costa Rica and Mexico could 
offer a definition of democracy. In contrast, a 2003 Mexican national survey found that “over 60 
percent of respondents were unable or unwilling to produce an answer” (Schedler and Sarfield 
2004: 2).
In summary, it appears that most citizens can offer a definition of democracy, even in 
nations with limited economic development and even limited experience with a democratic form 
of government. However, because researchers analyzed each of these survey projects 
individually, the broader patterns of cross-national similarity and differences is not apparent. 
And even more important than the percentage giving a response is the content of these 
responses—which we consider in the next section.